Sans
by skyspireskit3
Summary: No Country for Old Men- Carla Jean gets a visitor. One-shot, alternate ending.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: for the record, I wrote this story weeks before I ever laid eyes on "Loaded Pistol" by Circe Rose. Same scene, different take.

Disclaimer: I do not own _No Country for Old Men_

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And, Freedom, was I free?  
-Richard Adams, _The Plague Dogs_

Carla Jean stood in her black dress and watched as her mother's coffin disappeared into the earth and she was glad for the veil because it hid that she wasn't crying. Not like she should have been. Only a slight stinging in her eyes. She knew that she should at least try but she couldn't bring herself to.

The woman who had raised her, not really her mother at all but her grandmother, was dead. She should cry. But how could she? How could she cry for what had only ever made her sick. The years and years of screaming and berating that ground her down into the floorboards. The mornings and nights wrung with dread when there was no school or sleep to escape in.

Right now she had silence and she was glad.

After the funeral she went home to the only home she had now, once her grandmother's and now hers, and sat at the kitchen table and thought about making tea. She wasn't going to stay long. There were too many bad memories there, drifting through the sun-splashed rooms like oily leaks of smoke. She heard the whisper of rustling curtains and saw a window open that shouldn't have been. Pushed her chair back with a sharp scrape of wood and went into the bedroom.

A man sat half-hidden in a dark corner of the room. He was tall and powerful with chin-length hair that was cut into a curving helmet shape against his skull.

She let out a breath. Willed her startled heart to slow back down. You scared me, she said.

Chigurh said nothing. Just regarded her with his stone-flat eyes. Then he stood and picked up the leather satchel at his feet and held it out to her.

There's five hundred and thirty dollars missing, he said.

She nodded and opened the case. Pulled out a few piles of bills, counted them, then pulled out a few more. She handed them to him in a neat stack.

There, she said. A hundred thousand like we agreed.

He took the money and put it in his pocket.

Two million dollars meant that much to you, he said. Not an accusation or even a question. Just a fact. But somehow his words pierced her like nothing had yet and a fist clutched tight at her throat.

Carla Jean didn't want to believe she was anything like her mother, her real mother, the woman was only a memory of a slamming door. _You told that boy you were covered when you weren't cause you thought it would make him take you away,_ she thought savagely. _But he disappeared and then so did you._

When along had come Llewelyn Moss she had thought she was finally getting out and away from her prison and its warden. Carla Jean was prettier than her mother had been. Again just a fact. She hadn't needed to try and get knocked up to get a man to take her away. But she'd only found another prison waiting for her, this one with bars made of minimum wage and shards of dreams and a trailer that would be her coffin. She shut her eyes tight.

_I'm sorry Llewelyn but like you said you can't undo what's been done._

Chigurh was still standing there. Her mind rebelled and she suddenly wanted to scream and order him out, the man who would have murdered her husband and nearly did. But she couldn't step back from it like that. She knew what she had done and there was no way she ever wouldn't know. She opened her eyes again and pulled in a breath and managed to blow out some of the ache in her chest.

You should go, Chigurh said. When they can't find the money they will come looking for you.

She nodded again. She was free now, wasn't she?

_Free._ Her mind finally wrapped around it.

Chigurh moved past her with that strange deadly grace of his and went out the door and was gone. She stood alone in the roomholding a satchel that felt heavy as lead in her arms and she thought, _I'm sorry Llewelyn but I just couldnt stand it no more._

Chigurh walked away down the street and passed by two boys on bikes. He kept walking and didn't turn his head as a drunken man drove through a red light and ran one of them over without stopping. The second boy stood and watched the wheels on the fallen bike spin and he dropped his face into his hands and cried.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Alternate version of the end

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_I'm sorry Llewelyn but I just couldnt stand it no more._

Chigurh looked down at her. All her senses were suddenly alive and needle-sharp in her distress and she could smell him. Not musk and sweat like Llewelyn always was but still so undeniably male. A man who didn't need even cologne.

You should go, he said. When they can't find the money they will come looking for you.

She nodded again. Tried not to dwell on the blood suddenly rushing to her head. Damn it, her husband hadn't been dead a month and here was the man who would have killed him if it had gone just an inch another way.

Llewelyn had been her first and, up till right now, her last. But she was free now, wasn't she?

_Free._ Her mind finally wrapped around it.

Chigurh started to move past her with that strange deadly grace of his and her hand reached out and caught his sleeve on its own. He looked at it and then at her, questioning, and before she knew it she was on her toes with her lips against his.

No response. No change in his expression. Not even an eyelid flicker. Her stomach twisted at it all and she started to let go when his mouth crushed hers and he was all she could taste.

They fell back on the big bed with its ugly cherry-pattern sheets. She pushed his jacket off his broad shoulders and got her hands under his shirt and felt the hard muscle beneath taut warm skin. The shirt was pulled off over his head and her dress' fastenings were torn open with a brutal yank. She couldn't breathe around his mouth and she didn't care.

She heard the chink of the buttons on his jeans, felt his hard thighs against hers, and then she cried out as pleasure filled the world. But from him there was never any sound, only a catch in his breath at his climax.

As they sank slowly down from the peak she ran her hands over him one last time. Pressed a kiss against his sweat-salted neck and willed her eyes to stay open just a little bit longer, because she knew he would be gone when she woke up.

Outside, two boys were riding down the street on their bikes and a drunken man ran a red light and ran one of them over without stopping. The second boy stood and watched the wheels on the fallen bike spin and he dropped his face into his hands and cried.

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Which ending did you like better? Please let me know.


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